


the wind blows

by windwaves



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: IDOLiSH7 Part 4 Spoilers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24946078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windwaves/pseuds/windwaves
Summary: people often comment they get along so well but minami thinks it's strange and sad to tie yourself to someone just to resurrect a ghost between the two of you.
Relationships: Natsume Minami & Rokuya Nagi, Natsume Minami/Rokuya Nagi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	the wind blows

ああ 風が吹いている  
ah, the wind is blowing  
— 花は揺れる // hanahayureru, adieu

* * *

after the funeral, minami goes back to the cafe that he’d met haruki in. the piano bench is empty, and he’s tempted to go sit on it, open the lid of the piano and gently press down on the keys. maybe it will sound like haruki’s music, if he pretends hard enough.

instead, he goes to the counter and orders himself a cappuccino, settling in a corner table. it’s easy to lose himself in the rhythm of the coffee shop, drawing lazy treble clefs on the manuscript sheet. one note. two lines. the end of a song, a forlorn note.

“that’s a terribly sad song, natsume-shi.”

he looks up and sees nagi, face half hidden by his scarf and hat. “may i?” he asks, gesturing at the empty chair opposite minami. minami inclines his head, shuffling his papers into a tidy stack so the table is clear.

“your friends aren’t with you?” minami asks, though he doesn’t really care for the answer. he’s surprised they let nagi out of their sight after all that has happened, given how desperate they had been to have him back. nagi divests himself of the scarf and hat, draping them over the back of his chair as he seats himself.

“i needed some time alone,” he says quietly. his eyes are red from crying, and minami rather envies that. he hasn’t cried since that night with haruki, not even after the funeral. he can’t seem to, so he’s stopped trying. instead, he’s writing single note songs. maybe lack will express his own lack, or something like that.

they sit in silence like that, minami drawing clefs in the margins of his manuscript paper, nagi staring at his hands.

nagi breaks their silence first. “thank you, natsume-shi,” nagi says quietly. “it was very kind, and very brave of you to tell me where haruki was.” minami wants to laugh, because that had ultimately been due to his own selfishness, and maybe some guilt over the entire sakura message fiasco.

“i’m not brave,” he stirs his coffee and sips at it. it’s more bitter than he remembers it being. minami’s well aware of his own flaws. one thing he’s never been accused of is bravery, to have rokuya nagi insist he is would certainly be a first.

“you can be,” nagi says. “you stepped in for me when i could not go on translating between my friends and my brother.”

minami bites his tongue, lest he says something he regrets. that was not bravery, he thinks. that was foolishness on his part. maybe nagi sees it as bravery but minami thinks it was really foolish of him. he’s never been one to stick his neck out for others, but maybe haruki was right. maybe there was something still kind enough in him that when he saw that look on nagi’s face, he’d intervened. despite the costs, despite the possible consequences.

riku had been cruel to put him in that position, to make him say those things to his brother just as seth had been similarly cruel to try and force nagi to say those words to his friends. he can’t say he thinks very well of idolish7 after all that he’s seen, but thoughtless cruelty is not the same as deliberate malice. riku’s heart had been in the right place, and it had all worked out eventually. fortunately.

“your friends were cruel to put you in that position,” minami says bluntly. “however well-intentioned, that was a cruel thing to do. thoughtless too, since they forget who you are, and who your brother is.”

nagi’s smile is a bit rueful. “i suppose they have only ever known me as rokuya nagi, lover of beautiful girls and all things magical girl kokona.” his eyes drop to his hands, where he is pressing his fingers together. “they don’t really know who i used to be, and it doesn’t matter really.”

“does it not?” minami wonders about that. nagi may have given northmarea up for now, but it is so much a part of him that he wonders if idolish7 are willfully blind to the fact.

nagi lifts a shoulder in a half shrug. “it’s not the most important thing.”

minami studies him with a critical eye, then shrugs. it’s not his problem. rokuya nagi is but a stranger who had mattered to someone who mattered to minami, but that didn’t make them friends, nor did it mean they had to be friends. if touma and nanase riku were friends these days as well, it’s none of minami’s business.

“well then, i hope you continue to be well.” minami tilts his head in a polite gesture, and starts gathering up his things. “i must be going.”

nagi looks up at him and offers a small smile. “thank you, natsume-shi.”

“whatever for?”

“being there.” that gives minami pause, because it had all been a series of fortunate or unfortunate things that had led them here. maybe in its own way, it had been a kind of fate.

“you’re welcome, rokuya-san.”

work parties are very wearying, he thinks. minami's been to enough of these to time himself to leave by his third drink, making polite excuses about work the next day. it usually works, except nagi has drifted over to his side of the room now, and he looks like he wants to talk. minami wonders if he can finish his drink and leave first, but then there's a familiar voice calling his name.

“natsume-shi!” ah, caught. minami looks up and finds nagi next to him, slightly flushed from the heat and alcohol. his ears are terribly red though, minami notes.

“good evening, rokuya-san.” he supposes it has been a while, it can’t hurt to talk a little.

“have you been well? the weather has been quite cold lately, no?” nagi seems concerned, his accent slipping. minami wonders if he’s more than a little drunk, because nagi seems the kind to have had a drink with everyone. but he’s also remarkably steady, so minami doesn’t comment on it.

“well enough. busy with work,” he says. he’s in the middle of a new song for zool, in between acting jobs and the odd variety show appearance here and there. their new manager is pushing him to accept a job on some late night radio show, but minami thinks he’d rather stay home tinkering with his piano if he has to be up late at all.

“i haven’t spoken to you since northmarea,” nagi says. minami mentally counts the months, and he’s surprised to realise it’s been almost a year.

“i suppose we’ve both just been busy,” he demurs. he certainly has, between jobs and writing enough songs for an album, their lives and photoshoots. 

“even if we were, it would be remiss of me not to check up on my friends more often than once a year,” nagi looks at him with earnest eyes, and minami tilts his head to study nagi more carefully.

“are we friends, rokuya-san?” minami's smile is his usual serene one, the pleasant one that few people realise doesn't reach his eyes.

trust nagi to have noticed though.

“of course!” the words are emphatic, like there can be no doubt of it. minami wonders, because he's always been disinclined towards people, and even more disinclined towards making friends. friends mean feelings, and feelings were such terribly messy things. after all, look at how the entire thing with sakura haruki had turned out.

“dear me, i must have missed the memo,” minami murmurs. 

“pardon?” 

“nothing important, rokuya-san.” minami smiles again, beatific. nagi gives him a long look, seeing entirely too much for minami's liking, especially for someone toeing the line of being drunk. minami averts his gaze, reaching for his almost empty glass. he contemplates getting another drink, but perhaps he should excuse himself.

“it’s getting late,” he says. “i must excuse myself.”

“let me escort you home,” nagi offers, gallant and apparently much more drunk than he appears. that gets an amused smile from minami, though he hides it behind his hand.

“i think i'll be fine, rokuya-san.”

“oh,” nagi looks utterly crestfallen by his refusal, and minami stifles a laugh.

“thank you for the offer, regardless. it's very kind of you.” he says. nagi beams at him, and minami wonders if he should message someone to take nagi home. just in case. ah, but nagi is an adult, and minami thinks he saw izumi-senior somewhere. “take care, rokuya-san.”

he goes to make his excuses and get a taxi, but if there's an unsent rabbitchat to nagi later that evening, well. no one needs to know.

some days he sits in front of the piano and it’s easy—major chords for the fast and loud songs, minor chords for the slower, sadder ones he keeps to himself. just because he writes songs for zool doesn’t mean he doesn't write for himself. a few bars here, a phrase there. string them together and he has something like a song, even if he’s the only one to hear it.

the other day nagi had asked him _are you happy_ , and he’d looked like he genuinely wanted to know. the only other person who had ever asked him that had been haruki, and the thought is far more painful than he’d thought it could be.

a single note, the sound thin and feeble as it echoes around his studio.

he sighs and closes the lid of the piano.

minami wonders whose bright idea it was to put the two of them together for work, but minami wants to _strangle_ them. he's used to working with yamato and yuki on dramas and movies alike, but hosting a travel show with rokuya nagi was not something he'd ever thought of doing, never mind wanted to do. he's not much of a host or an mc, even if he can read scripts and pretend he's having fun. at least he knows how to navigate studio tensions.

it's been a long day of travel and forced cheerfulness while they explored the tiny onsen town, and minami's quite nearly at the end of his patience. at least they've wrapped up filming for the day, so it means he can order a drink and then call a retreat, maybe sit in the hot springs undisturbed for ten minutes.

one of the producers steps up to them. “good job today,” he tells them, beaming. “you two get along very well.” minami doesn't know what to make of that, but he plasters on a smile and bows, thanking the producer.

nagi is staring at him again, a considering look that makes minami's skin crawl.

“natsume-shi doesn't have to pretend to be happy in front of me,” nagi says suddenly.

minami's smile is more a grimace than smile at this point. “i wouldn't worry about that, rokuya-san.”

that just makes nagi’s mouth slant into an unhappy line, and minami fleetingly thinks that nagi’s face wasn't made for unhappiness. it’s a strange thought that minami keeps to himself.

“even so,” nagi says softly. “you shouldn’t have to pretend.”

minami wants to laugh. he was a child actor. he’s been pretending far longer than he remembers; it’s second nature now.

“perhaps when people stop wanting me to be someone else,” minami says, smile in place again.

another day, they end up on a beach for an episode, sunny and bright and with soft sand, a far cry from the rocky beaches of northmarea. minami had only ever gone once, the sea grey and angry, the sky melting into it. the sea crashed against the cliffs, the rocks slick and jagged around it. he wonders if nagi had ever gone.

nagi now is positively wilting in the heat, and minami passes him another bottle of cold water which nagi opens and douses himself with, soaking his hair and collar as he flops down next to minami.

“you’ll be all wet for the shoot,” minami says.

“better than dying here in this awful heat,” nagi mumbles. minami hides a smile behind his hand, tilting his hat so it blocks the sun better.

“you really can’t handle the heat, can you?” he asks.

nagi just groans beside him. “i’d rather a blizzard.” he sounds vaguely resentful, squinting at the sun through his fingers. “the staff are cruel for doing this to me. how can i be _cool_ or _elegant_ or _sexy_ like this?”

“a shame indeed,” minami agrees. nagi stares at him for a moment before turning away.

“natsume-shi is very unfair,” nagi declares, clearly settling into a sulk. 

“am i?”

“yes. natsume-shi is enjoying the heat, your hair doesn’t look awful. you don’t even look like you’re sweating.” nagi’s eyes narrow at the last part of the sentence, and minami has to stifle his laughter. “see?! now you laugh at me. _not fair!_ ”

it’s hard not to laugh, but when minami stops giggling, he finds nagi watching him with a look he would label as tender were it not for the fact that it’s directed at him. nagi catches his eye and offers him a winsome smile, and minami thinks that some girls would kill to be where he is right now.

“natsume-shi, you’re drunk.”

minami bristles at that. “i am not,” he snaps. he’s only had a few drinks, and perhaps he’s a little tipsy, but he’s far from drunk. he can see nagi's eyes flicking between his face and his glass, and minami rolls his eyes. “i’m fine,” he says firmly. he’s just tired and stressed because it had been a long couple of weeks and there had been little chance to breathe or stop, and when he did it’d been hard to stop thinking about work.

so maybe he deserves his drinks and maybe he deserves the really strong ones he doesn’t normally get, and it’s absolutely none of nagi’s business what he chooses to do.

“are you joining me or are you going to keep standing there?” he asks, waving the bartender down for another drink. nagi takes a seat, but he doesn’t order anything. minami ignores him in favour of his new martini, cold and dry the way he likes it best.

“why are you here?” minami asks.

“i had a meeting, then i saw you as i was leaving,” nagi says. “ so i came to say hello, since i haven't seen you in a while.”

hello indeed, when nagi’s first words had been _you’re drunk_. “i’ve been busy, and so have you.” it's not untrue, even if he's on tv screens less these days. meanwhile nagi is everywhere; it feels like anywhere minami looks, there's an ad featuring nagi on it.

“even so. i just think it’s a shame we see so little of each other.” nagi fiddles with his glass of water, tracing shapes in the condensation.

“it can’t be helped.” they’re still not particularly close, even after all that time working with each other. a few more jobs together here and there, but minami’s focus has always been more music and acting than modelling the way nagi’s is. “we rarely do the same kind of work.”

beyond that, he supposes it’s partly his fault. there’s a string of read messages he hasn’t replied, too tired or half forgotten. 

“i’ll trade you a truth for a truth.”

maybe nagi was right, because he must be drunk to offer this to nagi when he knows nagi is brimming with questions about him. nagi's often commented as such, that natsume-shi keeps too many secrets. but he's always looked so sad about it, and it baffles minami. secrets are simply the way he's always lived; there's nothing to be sad about.

“i don’t want your secrets, natsume-shi,” nagi says gently. minami raises an eyebrow, but nagi just shrugs gracefully. minami huffs and knocks back the rest of his martini, cold settling inside him.

his hair is falling out of place again and he can’t be bothered to push it back when it’ll only free itself again in five minutes. instead, he glares at his glass like it’ll refill itself if he stares hard enough.

“may i?”

minami shrugs. he doesn’t really know what nagi is asking, but he certainly isn’t expecting nagi to reach over and tuck that stray strand of hair behind his ear, or for him to do it so gently. gentleness is its own kind of violence; minami barely stops himself from flinching.

“it’s just going to fall out again,” minami says, for the lack of something else better to say.

“then i’ll tuck it back again, if you’ll let me.”

“i don’t need you to take care of me, rokuya-san.” minami’s tone is sharper than he intends, but the sentiment stands. he doesn’t need rokuya nagi to look out for him, especially not from misplaced sentiment. 

“i’m not that boy,” he retucks his hair behind his ear more securely. “neither are you, rokuya-san.” 

“maybe so,” nagi agrees, tilting his head to look at minami. “it doesn’t mean you can’t be.”

minami snorts. he doesn’t presume to know what nagi thinks of him, but he knows himself well enough. he doubts he is half of what nagi thinks he is. “you think too highly of me, rokuya-san.”

nagi shakes his head at that. “i just want to believe the best of you, that’s all. is that so bad?”

minami doesn’t have an answer for that.

nagi is a much better person than he is. minami knows this as a fact, evidenced by the years of their acquaintance and something resembling a friendship. people often comment they get along so well but minami thinks it's strange and sad to tie yourself to someone just to resurrect a ghost between the two of you.

though perhaps now it is less a resurrection than it's simply a kind of honesty he cannot afford to other people. this strange thing between them that keeps them drifting back together, and minami doesn’t have a name for it.

minami knows that nagi would say they are friends, but even after all these years, he wonders.

“why are we friends, rokuya-san?” minami has his chin in his hand, a coy gesture that’s practically habit at this point. nagi looks caught out by the question, blinking at him. minami waits, because he’s genuinely curious how nagi might answer.

“because you are an important person to me, natsume-shi.”

minami doesn’t know what to make of that. it’s not an answer he was expecting, because he didn’t think he mattered to nagi at all. what a strange thing to know, and to realise the weight of nagi’s regard.

“is it so strange to imagine that i care about you and your well-being?” nagi asks.

“in some ways,” minami answers eventually. but then again, minami’s view on social interaction is more than a little skewed, and very much cynical. there are few enough people he would consider friends, much less close ones. while he thinks he’s on decent enough terms with nagi to apply the word ‘friends’ to them, he’d never thought nagi had cared overly much about him, much less thought of him as someone important.

“natsume-shi is someone important to me, and not just because of haruki.” nagi’s voice is soft, but certain. “i would like for you to find a way to be happy also.”

“i’m fine as i am, rokuya-san,” he says quietly.

nagi’s smile turns sad. “are you?”

summer in northmarea is far cooler than tokyo, the fields green and gold with growing harvests, or dotted with sheep and cows. minami tugs his cardigan closer as they walk, sea on one side mountains on the other. they’d visited haruki’s grave earlier, but now they’re rambling, walking with no real direction.

“i hated you, you know.” minami says, apropos of nothing.

nagi laughs at that. “i did too, briefly.”

“was it because of the sakura message thing?” minami still can’t listen to that song, even though sometimes his fingers start playing the opening notes of it on piano before merging into a different song.

“in part. i think it was mostly because you were reminding me of things i thought i’d left behind.” nagi’s smile is sad, a touch bitter. his and seth’s relationship is better these days, but people leave their marks in unseen ways. minami’s still not quite sure he’s really forgiven haruki after all these years himself, however dearly he holds their time together.

“and now?”

“should i still?”

minami shrugs. “that’s up to you, rokuya-san. i wouldn’t blame you.”

nagi turns to face minami. “i couldn’t hate you, natsume-shi. not really then, certainly not now.” he has that look on his face again, almost tender. minami looks away, keeps his eyes on the path in front of them, tracing a trail through the grass.

here’s the thing: minami has always been highly aware of the distance between himself and others. beyond actual physical distance, there are emotional distances he imposes, distances slowly eroded by persistence and goodwill and trust. then there is nagi, who has always respected the boundaries minami has set, who has never tried to push too hard or too far.

they've come a long way from where they started, nagi a sort of haunting between him and haruki to becoming a person he knew and then a friend of sorts, then to this strange thing between them that neither of them have put a name to.

the years add up and they have changed, but perhaps they were meant to be here all along.

the distance is bridged by the smallest of gestures—his hand brushing against nagi's, hooking their little fingers together like children making promises.

a gentle squeeze, then nagi's fingers are twining around his, firm and secure.


End file.
